Nobody believes me when I tell them that certain candidates have bad vibes on the phone or on-campus interview. I'm never wrong, either. I've stopped talking about this.
One of the staff in my department was able to tell us, without fail, whether a candidate for a faculty job or grad school was going to be trouble. Everyone was sad when another department hired this person.
I can do this with grad students. After multiple demonstrations of this ability, my old department always followed my grad admissions recommendations.
It's nice to have skillz.
